Saturday, August 25, 2012

This is no deserted island

[Click inside the text to see the full blog post. Lots of pix today]

There are planners and there are the spontaneous. Try as we might, we are the latter.

Perhaps it comes from being sailors. At some point, you just have to give up planning anything because the winds are ultimately in control.

Cruisers are dependent on a dinghy to get to town and then dependent upon whatever mode of transportation is available once you arrive on land. Often, one must rely on the compassion of fellow cruisers with a car, as was the case with Jack and June, the marina managers in Mystic.

In Block Island there are a number of transportation choices: bikes, mopeds, taxis and foot. Before starting our day inland we spent a good 15 minutes discussing how we would get the groceries, rent mopeds, where we'd have lunch etc. and we actually developed a plan.

View of New Harbor

It's a delightful stroll from New Harbor to the main activities along the Atlantic coast side of the island, and we were on course for a good 25 minutes. Then - uh oh - we came upon a Farmers Market in a small park!

All plans were quickly changed.

Block Island Saturday Farmers Market in the park

Napkins and placemats

Just about everything was very expensive: $7 jam, $8 for napkins, $5 for a loaf of bread...

blockislandsweatersetc@gmail.com

Hand-knit sweater with form of Block Island

....and then I stumbled upon a woman hand-knitting sweaters for $55 (about what a sweatshirt sells for downtown). The image woven into the sweater is of the island.

Next, mopeds and an exploration of this amazing island. Polly, our cab driver, said there were 211 bicycle or moped accidents on the island just last year. We certainly understand why. She also says tourism is down considerably (could have fooled us!). I asked another cab driver about real estate values. He said the $4 to $6 million dollar homes are selling quickly but not the $1 million.

Who would have thought we'd live to see the day when $1 million was considered an entry-level afixer-upper.